SHOW ME THE MONEY WORKSHEET!

When it came to the decision on child support and alimony during my divorce, the attorneys in the case who were all biased in support of my X kept on emphasizing my X's W-2 forms and referring to that form as the sole source of information in regard to my X's income.  In fact, there are multiple ways to locate income when the time comes to establishing what your X's income is. 

You can see this in the "Show Me the Money Worksheet" provided by The Modern Woman 's Divorce guide.  Some of these sources of income are in your X's tax returns, so be sure to examine them closely! 

According the the worksheet, the following are sources of income, some of them hidden or not immediately obvious, which you should be aware of when making financial decisions during your divorce:

1.  Accounts Receivable - It could be that your X has not yet reported income for his business because he has made an arrangement with the client to be paid after the divorce.  In such a situation, you would have to proceed with discovery of your X's business to find out if there are any outstanding fees owed;

2.  Accrued vacation or sick time payable in cash - I know this kind of income is particularly available to teachers, but you should check it out in any situation where this might be an issue, particularly if your X has been working with that particular employer for a lengthy period of time;

3.  Bonuses - Many employees receive bonuses around Christmas time and they vary from year to year.  You would want to specifically designate in your agreement what percent of that bonus would be taken into consideration for purposes of child support and alimony;

4.  Capital Gains - If the value of the stock your X owns rises then you would want to know the details of that;

5.  Commissions - Some people work on commission and that would be over and above a base salary that appears on the -W-2 form;

6.  Deferred Compensation - Sometimes there are retirement plans than only become vested after a certain number of years.  You would want full disclosure from your X's employer in order to be informed of these;

7.  Depletion allowance from oil and gas interests;

8.  Depreciation on assets - If you own a rental property for an extended number of years, you would deduct some of that depreciation from capital gains taxes when you sell the property;

9.  Disability benefits;

10.  Dividends - these would be reported on Schedule D of your X's tax returns;

11. Interest Income - This would be reported on Schedule B of your X's tax returns, which, by the way, is a great way to locate your X's bank accounts.  If he has interest free accounts, then you won't be in luck;

12.  Military benefits;

13.  Reimbursement for employment expenses -  This means transportation such as air flights, hotels, rental cars, entertainment, etc.  You would want to check with the employer through to find out what their policy is in regard to employment expenses.  This can amount to a considerable amount of money, so don't overlook it!

14.  Rental property income - For this you would look in Schedule E of your X's tax returns.  Even if mortage and maintenance exceed rental income, it still exists as income, so it should be included;

15.  Retained business earnings - If you X does consultant work of any kind, they would report that income, or should report it on 1099 forms.  Many people simply don't have their clients fill out the 1099s so they can evade the responsibility of reporting their income.  Be aware of that!

16.  Regular Salary;

17.  Social Security Benefits;

18.  Stock and stock options;

19.  Veterans benefits;

20.  Voluntary contributions to pension, retirement or savings plans;

Some ways I saw my X use to hide money was to overpay the taxes to the IRS and keep hidden from me that he was anticipating a large refund check.  Also, he overpaid credit cards so that there was a large credit balance.  The other thing my X did was to put sums of money into small independent banks over a period of time so that it would be difficult to trace them.

For more information check out the following link:

www.moddivorce.com

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